OLD BRITAIN, NEW HISTORY

Stephan Shakespeare on the version of our past now

taught in the schools over which David Blunkett is the latest politician to preside

IN YEARS to come, children sitting on their carers' knees will ask, 'Care-giver, What did you do in the war against the Tories?' and some brave souls will be able to reply, 'Child, I was a history teacher. I Paved the way for Tony.'

Opinion polls tell us that the youngest voters at the last election were the most vehemently anti-Tory. No wonder. After 11 Years of compulsory empathy lessons in school, only the hardest-hearted of young- sters could remain untouched by promises of a more caring society. Before there was New Labour, there was the New History with its textbooks meticulously chronicling the wicked ways of the wealthy. British history turns out to be a rich tapestry of oppres- sion. In one textbook, a large chapter heading, 'Britain: A Trading Nation', is illustrated by an equally large picture of a tortured black man. Next to him is a foul close-up of rot- ting teeth, below that, a rather Pretty arrangement of cowrie Shells, and finally an order for rum. The pupil is invited to make a connection.

, Whatever association forms in the pupil's mind, it is unlikely to be favourable to British trade. While it is undoubtedly true that many fortunes were made through the slave trade, and that the story of slavery is an unavoidable part of our history, it seems Just a little harsh to focus on it exclusively. But the statement of aims at the beginning of this chapter is quite explicit: 'You will see how Britain rose to be a leading trading nation . . . This unit concentrates in partic- ular on the slave trade.'

Not surprisingly, the unit on the Industri- al Revolution is no more generous to those who would be wealthy. As one would expect, extreme maltreatment of children is given pride of place. But the benefits of industrialisation are hardly considered — Indeed, the final summary is that 'the Industrial Revolution increased the gap between the rich and the poor'. The idea of improvement in the conditions of the work- ers is constantly undermined — for example, a drawing of sad little children in rags accompanies the question, 'Has this employ- er kept his promise to clothe and feed the pauper children in his mill?' There was widespread appalling treatment of children, and pupils should certainly learn all about it, but it is hard to come away from this unit without the lingering suspicion that all employers, right up to today, are inherently beastly and motivated only by greed.

Nor is there a good word to be said for the Brits as they went about turning distant parts of the globe pink. The unit on colo- nialism begins, perversely, at the end, but then, it sets the tone so much better: 'they were beaten senseless by the police'. Only after the despotic nature of British rule in India has been firmly established, through a description of the atrocity at Dharasana, can the unit on colonialism start at the beginning.

These illustrations are all from Past Into Present (authors: Mary Carter, Christopher CuIpin, Nicolas Kinloch, Peter Fisher, Nicholas Williams; published by Collins Educational, 1989), perhaps the most wide- ly used history textbook in secondary schools today. Like all school history text- books published in recent years, it focuses almost exclusively on social history rather than the old-fashioned 'diplomatic' history. It presents our progress through time as the struggle of 'ordinary people' against a variety of oppressors. But in other respects, the text does not have an obviously leftist agenda. Indeed, the authors would claim the book to be particularly free from bias, relying heavily on contrasting historical sources rather than traditional narrative. The pupil is encouraged to examine the primary evidence himself, and come to his own conclusions.

And so, in the section on 'Terrorism in Ireland and Britain' there is no authorial support for the IRA, nor any condemnation. Instead, the child is offered some quotes from the pro- IRA newspaper Troops Out, together with a cartoon strip from that paper. This is bal- anced by three lines of con- demnation from Roy Mason, the former secretary of state for Northern Ireland, and pho- tographs of buildings and cars damaged by IRA bombs. These photos themselves are offset by one of a British soldier, crouched with a machine-gun pointed omi- nously in the direction of a woman with a bag of shopping.

The accompanying text tries to be fair to both sides. Although there is no suggestion anywhere that a Unionist case even exists, there is never an explicit approval of ter- rorism either. Indeed, the unit ends with the words, 'Terrorism can only be defeated when the flow of money that feeds it has finally stopped.'

What is disturbing is that the adolescent historian is invited to assess the validity of IRA terrorism on the slenderest of evi- dence. The text tells him that 'the Provos came to be seen as gangsters or heroes, depending upon which side you were on', then — first implicitly, finally explicitly — invites him to take sides. Question three refers to Che Guevara's description of ter- rorism as a 'valuable tactic when it is used to put to death some noted leader of the oppressing forces well-known for his cruel- ty', and then asks, 'Does this explain the IRA's attempt to kill Mrs Thatcher?'

Question four refers to Britain's 'harsh measures' and asks whether 'the end can be said to justify the means'. Question five requires the child to 'decide whether you are for or against the activities of the IRA' and then 'write a short paragraph about the background to the troubles from the point of view of a Northern Irish Catholic. Have there been any injustices?' Here is the final question of the unit: 'The IRA has an esti- mated 300 active members, but the UDA has 50,000. Both are terrorist organisations. Why does the British government spend much more money opposing the IRA than the UDA?'

At no point does the text overtly take sides on the issue. The child is merely asked to consider various pieces of evi- dence. But the flimsiness of these emotive little scraps, set against the complexity of events, is much more likely to induce con- fusion in a young person's mind than any valuable historical awareness. Pro-IRA statements are presented as having the same validity as statements from the British goverment. The child is given the simple choice: are the Provos gangsters or heroes? To the unthinking pupil this must seem like the toss of a coin.

There are countless examples, on nearly every page, of how over-sophisticated exer- cises based on tiny snippets of information can have a confusing and powerfully sub- versive effect in the classroom. In Present- ing the Past: Rulers and Rebels (Haydn Middleton, OUP, 1987), the death of Wat Tyler is illustrated with a photo of Arthur Scargill injured after a clash on the picket line in 1984. The accompanying text says that there were three accounts of how Scargill was hurt, two of them involving police brutality and the third (the police account) suggesting that Scargill 'slipped'. The pupil is invited to conclude how diffi- cult it is to know what really happens in confused, violent clashes — during the miners' strike as during the Peasant's Revolt. The effect, of course, is to suggest that Arthur Scargill is today's Wat Tyler.

In a 'Schools History Project' textbook for 12-year-olds (authors: Colin Shephard, Chris Hinton, John Hite, Tim Lomas, pub- lished by John Murray, 1992), the child is presented with three quotes about the French Revolution and asked to match them to three photographs, of Joseph Goebbels, Mikhail Gorbachev and Mar- garet Thatcher. It is an intriguing challenge for an adult, but for most children it is far too subtle. I know from my own experience of the classroom that most children will simply guess, and, in that off-hand response, they will unconsciously have accepted the notion that somehow Goebbels, Gorbachev and Thatcher are more or less interchangeable.

Such an approach to history in schools must have at least contributed to the politi- cal climate of recent years, and certainly to disillusion with politics among the young. Tories were the masters, and the history masters were anti-Tories. Perhaps that was a healthy balance. Who knows what power- ful effects there will be, now that the gov- ernment and the teachers are more sympathetically aligned?

Ironically, it was Margaret Thatcher's government itself which, half-unwittingly, enshrined the modern approach to history through the National Curriculum. But while this approach seems highly question- able, the case against traditional history teaching is also rather strong, in terms of both methodology and content. Traditional methods were well satirised by 1066 and All That: 'History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember.' In a random test in Oxford University Parks on Sunday, I asked four people — all of an age to have benefited from old-fashioned history teach- ing — what they remembered about King Alfred. All four knew that King Alfred was 'the Great'. One responded (wrongly) that he founded Winchester College. The other three only knew that he burnt the cakes.

When asked why this story about the cakes seems so important, one respondent said, 'It shows that at least he took an interest in domestic things.' Another dis- agreed: 'No, it shows he wasn't interested in cakes.' None seemed to know why Alfred was 'great', apart from possibly being an early version of a 'new man'.

Opponents of traditional teaching argue that this is typical: a sense of history consist- ing of dates and events in a loose narrative structure has no more significance than half-remembered fairy tales. Such learning gives one a vague feeling of having under- stood something about the development of the nation, without actually having done so at all. One might as well be remembering snippets of Hollywood movies. By contrast, the progressives argue, real history should involve real experience. Pupils should (for example) be presented with two or three differing accounts of a situation — through letters, diaries, paintings and photos — and allowed to create their own personal under- standing of the past In the words of the influential Schools Council History Project (1976), children should 'empathise with the people concerned in any past situations'.

Under these conditions, it would be wrong for the history teacher to present the pupil with an 'approved version' of the past. And for progressives there is a second and possibly even more compelling reason to reject the traditionalist version of histo- ry: that version is the creation of the old ruling establishment. The story of what great men did in the past is a partial and therefore biased view. It serves not to enlighten, but to oppress. Concentrating on the exploits of a few diminishes the achievements of the many — particularly poor people, women and blacks. Their self- respect and therefore their power in the present are grievously undermined. The past contains an infinity of events and is open to many interpretations. But, according to its critics, traditional school history selects primarily those events and those interpretations which serve the pur- pose of the ruling establishment. For exam- ple, it suits the establishment that most pupils remember only that King Alfred was 'great'. The story of the cakes contrasts the importance of a man's concerns with the triviality of a woman's. However, Alfred is treated comparatively well by modern his- tory books, perhaps because of his empha- sis on education: it is conquerors and explorers who are particularly loathed. For the head of lower school history in my Lambeth comprehensive, the special hate figure was Christopher Columbus. 'I detest everything about that man,' she hissed. 'He makes me shudder.'

This view will irritate many Tories, for whom it will seem much more attractive to study the characters of the great men of the past than, say, to enquire into the origins of multicultural Britain. Nevertheless one cannot just scornfully reject the progressive idea of history teaching. The past cannot be a fixed object of admiration. As the his- torian William Sloane wrote in 1894, 'His- tory will not stay written. Every age demands a history written from its own standpoint — with reference to its own social conditions, its thoughts, its beliefs, its acquisitions.'

It is therefore inevitable that this age — the age of the victim — has developed its own distinctive version of history. Its methodology is empathy, which requires the pupil to feel the past as it might have felt to those oppressed in the past. And it has a new content: no longer is the diplo- matic progress of the nation of primary concern. Now we focus on the changing role of women, on the struggle of the black man against racism and the worker against the abuse of factory owners. The story of great events must compete with an enquiry into the nature of society.

And that social study will help create the new order. A recent paper entitled '"Pub- lic" and "ecological" roles of the teaching profession' (British Journal of Educational Studies, March 1996) is quite clear about teachers' responsibility for the new society: 'They need to consider the nature of their role, not only within an organisation, but within a societal context as well, precisely because the public domain is a necessary focus for the promotion of collective life as opposed to the prosecution of individual interests.'

The history being taught today in our schools will necessarily be the history that is meaningful to teachers. Intentionally or not, it will be framed to fit their purposes, just as it did 100 years ago, when their pur- poses were different. Teachers are the van- guard of society. They lead children through the most significant time of their lives. Depressingly for Tories, the future will be what teachers make of the past